Contributed by: Kimberly Wyman
A New Year is traditionally a time to set resolutions you hope to accomplish over the coming year. At The Center, we encourage you to Live YOUR Plan™ every day, but what a better time of the year to reinforce and embrace all that you wish to be, do and have.
Identifying the lifestyle that best suits you is similar to crafting a personal brand and crafting a personal brand can be greatly supported by setting goals a.k.a. setting New Year’s resolutions.
A personal brand is about:
- Realizing you already have a personal brand – everyone does. Your existing personal brand is someone’s gut feeling about you and your existing perception of yourself. Does your brand say what you want it to say?
- Acknowledging where you currently are. What is your gut feeling about yourself? What do others say?
- Recognizing where you want to be. How do you want to be perceived, by yourself and by others?
- Bridging the gap between the two points. This is your personal brand journey and an excellent lead-in to your desired lifestyle.
5 Ways to Brand Your New Year
- What are you passionate about? Most of us know what gets us up in the morning. If you don’t, consider spending time exploring this. If you truly aren’t passionate about anything, how about if you pick something and stick with it for 3 months? By eliminating things that you’re not passionate about, it just may lead you to what you are passionate about. Knowing this passion will help you set a resolution that is sure to make you proud of yourself.
- Where do your strengths lie? Sometimes we’re good at things that don’t interest us. But, understanding what we’re good at can help us leverage what we truly want by taking someone of the extra legwork out of the equation.
- What do you want to learn about? Are there a million things that come to mind? Just pick one to focus on. If you have nothing that comes to mind, then just pick something and stick with learning all about it for a designated period of time. Eventually, you’ll discover things you truly want to learn about via process of elimination.
- Where do you want to explore? Your neighborhood? You community? Your state? Your country? The world? Pick a place for 2016. Read about it, learn about it, visit…even if only virtually. This world is pretty big and pretty small at the same time. Take time to learn about another tiny corner besides that in which you live.
- Be consistent. As with any type of branding – personal or professional – branding relies on consistency. Be faithful. Be reliable. Be steadfast.
Having a clear vision of your desired lifestyle can help you make very good decisions about which paths you follow and which you choose to decline. Having a clear vision of your desired lifestyle will also make planning for your everyday and your future easier. Make life count. Live YOUR Plan™ and Happy New Year!
Any opinions are those of Kimberly Wyman and note necessarily those of Raymond James. 2016: Branding Your New Year